Yii2 Advanced Template on Nginx Elastic Beanstalk - nginx

Question

I'm trying to launch my Yii2-advanced project on AWS' Elastic Beanstalk stack running an nginx server. I have been unable figure out a configuration that allows me to access the backend of the site. I have tried extending the nginx configuration via the AWS documentation:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/platforms-linux-extend.html
Which does not work. So I modify the configuration manually via vim from the command line.
While using combinations of the following configuration settings:
https://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/799/yii2-app-advanced-on-single-domain-apache-nginx
To no avail. I have tried alias and root for the backend folder and each variation I get either a 404 (file not found) or 502 (bad gateway) error.
At bare minimum, this is what I've tried to add to my nginx configuration:
root /var/www/html/frontend/web;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
location /backend/ {
root ../../backend/web;
}
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Here you can see a fully working yii2 advanced app example nginx configuration. You can change it to match your needs.
App server:
mycoolapp.com
nginx
php7.4-fpm
Routes:
http://mycoolapp.com -- frontend
http://mycoolapp.com/admin -- backend
http://mycoolapp.com/api -- api
Nginx configuration:
server {
## Listen ports config
listen *:80 http2;
#listen *:443 ssl http2;
## Site name config
server_name mycoolapp.com;
## SSL config (uncomment if necessary)
#include /etc/nginx/ssl-snippets/ssl-snippet.conf;
## Access and error log files path
access_log /var/log/nginx/mycoolapp.com.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/mycoolapp.com.error.log;
## Max upload size config
client_max_body_size 32m;
client_body_buffer_size 32m;
charset utf-8;
## Gzip config
gzip on;
gzip_types
text/plain
text/css
application/json
application/x-javascript
text/xml
application/xml
application/xml+rss
text/javascript
application/javascript;
## Path to app root (folder that contains frontend and backend folders)
set $base_root /var/www/html/mycoolapp;
root $base_root;
index index.php index.html;
## Frontend app config
## Entry point: https://mycoolapp.com
location / {
# Path to frontend web folder
root $base_root/frontend/web;
try_files $uri $uri/ /frontend/web/index.php$is_args$args;
## Omit static files logging, and if they don't exist, avoid processing by Yii (uncomment if necessary)
location ~ ^/.+\.(css|less|js|map|ico|png|jpe?g|gif|webp|svg|eot|ttf|woff|woff2|mp4|mov|swf|txt|pdf)$ {
expires 365d;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
try_files $uri =404;
}
## Deny any php file in assets folder (security)
location ~ ^/assets/.+\.php(/|$) {
deny all;
}
}
## Backend app config
## Entry point: https://mycoolapp.com/admin
location /admin {
## Path to backend web folder
root $base_root/backend/web/;
## Redirect to the URL without a trailing slash (uncomment if necessary)
#location = /admin/ {
# return 301 /admin;
#}
## Prevent the directory redirect to the URL with a trailing slash
location = /admin {
try_files $uri /backend/web/index.php$is_args$args;
}
## Omit static files logging, and if they don't exist, avoid processing by Yii (uncomment if necessary)
location ~ ^/admin/.+\.(css|less|js|map|ico|png|jpe?g|gif|webp|svg|eot|ttf|woff|woff2|mp4|mov|swf|txt|pdf)$ {
rewrite ^/admin(/.+)$ $1 break;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
try_files $uri =404;
}
## Deny any php file in assets folder (security)
location ~ ^/admin/assets/.+\.php(/|$) {
deny all;
}
try_files $uri $uri/ /backend/web/index.php$is_args$args;
}
## API app config
## Entry point: https://mycoolapp.com/api
location /api {
root $base_root/api/web/;
## Redirect to the URL without a trailing slash (uncomment if necessary)
#location = /api/ {
# return 301 /api;
#}
location = /api {
try_files $uri /api/web/index.php$is_args$args;
}
## Omit static files logging, and if they don't exist, avoid processing by Yii (uncomment if necessary)
location ~ ^/api/.+\.(css|less|js|map|ico|png|jpe?g|gif|webp|svg|eot|ttf|woff|woff2|mp4|mov|swf|txt|pdf)$ {
rewrite ^/api(/.+)$ $1 break;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
try_files $uri =404;
}
## Deny any php file in assets folder (security)
location ~ ^/api/assets/.+\.php(/|$) {
deny all;
}
try_files $uri $uri/ /api/web/index.php$is_args$args;
}
## PHP configuration
location ~ ^/.+\.php(/|$) {
## Rewrites
rewrite (?!^/((frontend|api|backend)/web|api|admin))^ /frontend/web$uri break;
rewrite (?!^/api/web)^/api(/.+)$ /api/web$1 break;
rewrite (?!^/backend/web)^/admin(/.+)$ /backend/web$1 break;
## FPM config
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;
}
## Logging and access of restricted folders
location = /robots.txt { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
location ~* /CHANGELOG { access_log off; log_not_found off; deny all; }
location ~* /LICENSE { access_log off; log_not_found off; deny all; }
location ~* /README { access_log off; log_not_found off; deny all; }
location ~* /\. { access_log off; log_not_found off; deny all; }
}